Mathura sits on the end of the bed. “Natesa told me you’ve grown close to Prince Ashwin.” Before I can guess what she is insinuating, she finishes. “That’s for the best. You’re the kindred of the Tarachand Empire, and a good one at that.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “What do you want, Mathura?”
“Deven will never interfere with your duties. He’ll hold on to the dream of you unless you tell him otherwise.”
“I love your son,” I say, forcing an even tone.
“Do you love him enough to step away from your throne? Few women have the influence you hold. Natesa says the prince respects you—he says you’re equals. Do you understand how rare that is? That’s a gift from the gods. You’d be a fool to squander it.”
She forgets I am not only the kindred; I am a Burner. My people will never accept me as I am. Even the ranis held captive in the palace were raised to despise my kind. I hid what I am from them, and I doubt I will regain their trust once they learn my true heritage. “When the time is right, I will step aside.”
Mathura clucks her tongue. “My son is a good man, but that’s folly, Kalinda. You’re a rani. You’ll always be beyond his reach.”
Gods alive, I hope Deven does not share her opinion.
Maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he left without saying good-bye, why he hasn’t asked me to relinquish my throne. Maybe he’s afraid I won’t walk away.
More doubts worm into my mind. I sided with Ashwin about the rebels. But Deven understands loyalty and duty better than anyone else. He will think back on our disagreement and realize that I supported Ashwin for the sake of the empire. I just hope Deven forgives me for the hurt my choice is causing him.
Mathura adjusts her sari pleats. “I’m leaving for Janardan with Ambassador Chitt. I trust when I see you next this will be resolved.”
“It will be.” By then the war will be over, and Ashwin will have secured his throne and palace. I will be free of my obligations. Free to openly love Deven. And free to tell Mathura to quit meddling.
I will savor that day.
A knock comes at the door, and Indah lets herself in. She is followed by a balding man in a long indigo robe.
“Healer Mego has come for Kalinda,” says Indah. “We’ll leave you two alone.”
Mathura rises, stately in her grace. “Think on my words, Kalinda.” She bows to emphasize my standing as kindred and sweeps out of the chamber after Indah.
Healer Mego sets his basket down on the table, rolls up his sleeves, and examines me with pale-gray eyes. “Indah told me you were corrupted by a demon.”
I grapple with his verbiage. “Corrupted” sounds as though I have been irrevocably wrecked. “We don’t have long before I have to leave. Can you heal me?”
“All in due time.” He unpacks his basket and lifts his hands, palms facing me. “I need you to burn me.”
“B-burn you?”
“Don’t fret, child. Do as I say.” Healer Mego presses our hands together, our palms and fingers touching. His old hands are marginally bigger than mine and smooth as the inside of a coconut. His arms are covered in more hair than his head. “Go on.”
My fingers glow white-yellow with soul-fire. His flesh must be blistering, yet he does not wince or draw back. He fixates on my fingertips. As I push my powers into them, my fire darkens to greenish yellow, then a sickly jade, and then . . . sapphire sparks fly out.
I douse my powers and shrink away from the vanishing blue fire. The healer lowers his unburned hands.
“How . . . how did you do that?” I ask.
“Years of practice.” Healer Mego unrolls his sleeves, his gaze resisting mine. “I’m sorry, Kindred. The Voider’s toxins are beyond healing. Only he can remove his poison from you.”
“What?” My hope to extract the cold-fire within me wastes away. “But what if he doesn’t?”
“Then I’m afraid his toxic cold will smother your soul-fire until it’s gone.”
“I’ll die?” No mortal can live without soul-fire. It is our essence.
“Your mortal half is already dying.” At my expression of horror, he adds, “You can try Razing, but I do not recommend you do so. The poisons would be quelled for a short while, but they would return twofold.”
My belly flips and dives. I have razed once before. An Aquifier cut me several times to bleed out a poison that hid my abilities. I will not relive that excruciating ritual for a temporary reprieve. “Can you do anything?” I plead.
“No,” he replies, his tone gentle. “I’m sorry.”
I sink onto the chair, knocking my pack to the floor. The temptation to lie down and let the cold consume me nearly pushes me to tears. The healer repacks his basket. Why did he even come if he cannot help me? I want to tell him to go away, but I withhold my bitterness. Lashing out at him would be wrong, and I cannot abide the thought of Udug winning in any small way. He will not compel me to cry or give into my endless shivers. He would have me believe I cannot survive. But we have the Lestarian Navy on our side, and soon the rebels will stand with us. Both are mercies from the gods.
I harvest a kernel of courage and push out my voice. “How long do I have until . . . ?”
“The full effect of the poisons takes a moon to manifest.”
“Udug poisoned me a fortnight ago.” I have about that much time left to find a remedy the healer is unaware of or persuade Udug to cure me. Any chance is better than the healer’s predicted outcome. “Are you certain no one can ward off the Voider’s powers?” I ask, thinking of Ashwin. “What if someone’s soul-fire can lessen the cold within me?”
“I would caution against relying on another’s soul-fire to supplement your own. Such practices are unpredictable and will worsen your side effects.” My fear returns, as does his kindly voice. “If you stay in Lestari, I will make your final hours comfortable.”
I scoop up my bag. “I must go.”
“Kindred, I pray you’ll reconsider. The damage the Voider’s powers are wreaking—”
“Is less than what he plans to do the world.” I pause at the door. “Thank you. I trust you’ll keep this between us.” I wait for the healer to grasp my expectation and then go.
Ashwin rushes down the corridor, dressed in his travel clothes. “There you are. We’re ready to depart.” He slows to a halt, his eyes growing. “What are you wearing?”
“Trousers. Mathura said they flatter me.”
His color reddens. “I—she—” He fumbles for words that do not come.
Healer Mego exits my chamber and leaves in the opposite direction.
“Who’s that?” Ashwin asks.
“A healer Indah sent to see me. Should we go?”
“Wait.” Ashwin holds me in place. “What did he say?”
I am dying, not dead. Right now the difference, thank Anu, is tremendous. I muster a wobbly half smile. “I’ll be fine.”
“Thank the skies.” Ashwin’s arms come around me. “You’re my strength, Kalinda. I cannot do this without you.” I should move away, but his nearness drizzles over me like warmed honey.
Healer Mego must be incorrect. Ashwin’s touch serves as an antidote to the Voider’s poison. Embracing his nearness for the good of my health cannot be harmful or I would feel something besides this blissful absence of cold.
He releases me, and the hoarfrost inside me shakes loose again. My body’s reaction makes up my mind. I cannot do this without him either. Ashwin will be my protection against the Voider’s poison in the days to come.
Outside the main palace entrance, a wing flyer fills the crushed shell courtyard. Ashwin and I join Pons and Indah, who secure our packs to the passenger platform with rope. Datu Bulan speaks to a palace guard off to the side. In the distance, the last navy vessel disappears through the breaker passageway, out to sea.
“I didn’t know the datu kept wing flyers,” I say.
“He traded the Paljorians for them a few years back,” Pons replies.
“Prince Ashwin,” asks Bula
n, striding over, “have you seen my daughter? Gemi was supposed to meet us here.”
“She’s gone with Admiral Rimba,” I answer. “Gemi volunteered to enlist, and I accepted.”
The datu’s mouth drops open, and his color rises.
Ashwin mutters a curse and scrubs at his forehead. “Kalinda, you didn’t.”
“Gemi said the admiral wouldn’t allow her to go without our authorization.” I lob my gaze back and forth between them, uncertain why they are angry. “I saw no sense in turning down a capable Trembler.”
Datu Bulan blusters out a string of indecipherable syllables and then shouts at his guard. “Signal the bridge! Tell them to bring back my daughter!”
“They’re gone, sir,” replies the guard. “The navy has passed through the breaker.”
“Then send a boat after her!”
“Princess Gemi said she wanted to go,” I explain, trying to pacify him.
The datu marches up to me, his white robes stark against ruddy cheeks. “The admiral was under orders to leave my daughter here. Prince Ashwin and I determined Gemi wouldn’t go to the war front. The prince suggested we exclude her, a bhuta ruler. All command was to fall to her should you fail. Now the demon rajah could wipe out my people’s future!”
“My apologies,” Ashwin says. “The kindred was unaware of our agreement.”
“Gemi didn’t tell me either,” I add. “I’m sorry.”
Bulan jabs his finger at my nose. “If anything happens to her, I will find you.” He swings around in a cloud of white and trudges off.
Indah calls out from the wing flyer, “Gemi will be fine. Bulan still thinks of her as his little girl, but I wouldn’t engage her in battle.”
Ashwin speaks under his breath. “That may be so, Kalinda, but you should have discussed this with me first. We should make these decisions together.”
“You didn’t tell me to leave Gemi behind,” I whisper in return.
“I suggested she stay to appease Bulan. Did you not wonder why he sent Indah to Iresh to participate in the trial tournament instead of Gemi? He values his daughter above all else. Ensuring her protection was my best leverage. Even with that, our trade agreement was too generous.” Ashwin is irritated with me, but also with himself for negotiating poorly.
“Excluding Gemi from battle wasn’t our choice to make,” I say.
Ashwin rubs at his headache. “In this case, it was.”
I cut off my next retort. Naturally, the datu wants to shelter his daughter, but had Gemi been a man, I have no doubt she would have been sent off to war. Had Gemi been a man, who would Ashwin have suggested we leave behind? Another woman? Would he have excluded me from battle?
“What’s done is done,” he says. “From now on, we consult each other about everything.”
“Fine.” I revolve away and hastily tie my hair back for the flight.
He climbs onto the wing flyer with Indah and Pons. I ride beside Ashwin, careful not to touch him or his healing warmth. After all I have done to secure and retain my throne, I deserve his trust to make decisions by myself.
Pons’s winds elevate us. Indah releases a squeal of distress, her grip a stranglehold on the navigation bar. She’s afraid of flying? Come to think of it, I have never ridden on a wing flyer with her.
A hearty gust propels us over the palatial city. Indah buries her face against Pons’s back, hiding from the lofty view. I drink in the sight of the turquoise cove and ivory beaches. Lestari truly is a haven. I wish I had relaxed and enjoyed our reprieve in paradise. Our stay was too short and fraught with strife, but Princess Gemi’s willingness to dive into battle boosts my confidence that we—the Southern Isles, Tarachand Empire, and rebels—can unite to defeat the foe that threatens us.
8
DEVEN
The ripe scent of drying manure wafts from the field. Beneath my boots, the grass is trampled with wagon and horse tracks. After nearly two days of flying, stopping intermittently along the way, I am thankful my feet are on the ground.
I crouch and finger the grass; it is still damp from the rainstorm that passed through this afternoon. Although the traces left by the demon rajah’s slow-moving army are three days old, the troops’ absence does not put me at ease.
Yatin and Natesa search for signs of Brac and Opal nearer to the tree line. Dense foliage dissuades wanderers from venturing into the Morass. The jungle dominates Janardan’s territory between the sea and the empire. Brac and Opal would not duck into that tangle of trees unless they wished never to come out.
Rohan scours the grasslands behind me, sending whistling gusts through low bushes to expose any place our siblings could have hidden. Where in the gods’ names did they go? Brac left no discernible footprints or scorched vegetation to hint at his direction.
The army’s tracks tell another story. Indents in the drying mud came from heavy artillery, catapults that fire heavy bolts and large rocks. Other wagons were weighted down with rams and siege ramps to scale or pound through thick, high brick walls. All of this I can discern. These defenses are standard among the imperial army. But still no sign of Brac.
“Rohan, where did you last see them?” I ask, my attention split between him and the jungle to the east. The Morass forced even the demon rajah to go around it.
He strolls to a knoll. “They crashed here. We couldn’t circle back because the archers started shooting.” His voice cracks, as is common for boys his age, and he clears his croaky throat. “Opal was lying right here, last I saw her.”
Arrows stick out of the ground. I inspect the flattened grass and find splinters of the wreckage. The troops must have disassembled the wing flyer and hauled the parts along as firewood. At least we know Opal and Brac did not fly away from here.
“What’s nearby?” I ask Yatin, the experienced navigator in our group.
He studies the position of the sun. “The closest village is due south, a day or so on foot.”
The army is trekking northwest into Tarachand. The border is not too far ahead. South would be Brac and Opal’s wisest direction. Yatin and I would select that route, but we searched the end of the clearing and found no tracks heading to the village. Any other tracks they left were beaten into obscurity by the hundreds of men who came through.
“There’s another possibility,” Yatin says lowly.
Rohan kicks at the end of an arrow protruding from the ground. Neither of us wants to consider that our siblings were taken. I would like to think Brac would not have been captured without setting this field alight to stand as a memorial to his indignation, but circumstances could have stopped him.
“It’s likely they’ve been captured.” I put off the prospect that anything worse has happened. We will explore one possibility at a time. “The rest of you stay here and guard the wing flyer. I should return the day after tomorrow, in time for us to fly to the meeting point.”
“I’m going with you.” Rohan holds his thin body tense, anticipating my refusal, but I respect his grit. “You’ll need me to listen for my sister.”
“We should all stay together,” Natesa says, pinning me with a fierce stare to wither me into compliance. She forgets I grew up in the palace surrounded by sister warriors. They could sober a drunkard with a single glare.
Yatin stays locked in worry. He is a friend to Brac and me, but he came along only after Natesa committed to the task. I should not have agreed to let them join us.
“We cannot take the wing flyer or they’ll see us,” I explain to dissuade her. “My guess is the main body of troops are a day, maybe a day and a half, away. We’ll have to run through the night to catch up to them.”
Natesa stretches her arms over her head. “I won’t let you slow me down.”
She’s as stubborn as a ratel with a viper in its teeth. I look to Yatin to make her see reason.
“We’ll keep up, General,” he says.
I hate that title of command and what it meant to my father. If he were here, he would order Yatin, Natesa, and Roh
an to follow him with no thought for their safety. I will not force them either way. “Your choice, but if you come along, I’m not your commander.”
“Understood,” Rohan replies, mustering a brave front. Still, his disappointment in not finding his sister drags his mouth down.
I asked him along. I put it in his head that we could find Opal and Brac, so I distract him from his concerns by asking him to help me drag the wing flyer into the trees for cover. Yatin and I also drop our swords there. Their size and weight will slow our pace. Yatin sulks back into the field, brooding about leaving his khanda behind.
Natesa offers him her haladie, a double-sided knife. “I still have daggers.”
“Thank you, little lotus.” Yatin bends his huge frame over her and kisses her nose.
Kali kissed my nose just two days ago. The memory pulverizes me. She made her choice, and it wasn’t me. I may need to get used to this feeling.
Our group takes turns whittling down our packs to necessities. Rohan is the smallest of us, even slighter than Natesa. As Yatin helps him tighten his straps, I slip goods from Rohan’s pack into mine and then regard the path left by the army. The flatland lies open ahead, beckoning us homeward.
I set off at a jog, and three sets of footfalls follow. My friends match my assertive pace, and we trek onward to our beloved empire of unforgiving deserts and unreachable mountains.
9
KALINDA
Freezing weather has come early to the Alpana Mountains. We fly in a steep climb over the powdery hills, the higher peaks obscured by soupy clouds. Snowflakes pinwheel around us. The white flecks land on Ashwin’s dark eyebrows and pale cheeks. We huddle together on the passenger plank, our teeth chattering out of sync with our shivering.
Pons guides us up, up, up, into thinner air. Indah burrows under a wool blanket, her eyes shut; she’s awake but barely tolerating our ascent. Our two-day flight has felt endless. I have never known a wintry depth this dreary. I cannot distinguish where the poisonous cold inside me ends and the bracing weather starts. Each pull of air drives icy spikes into my chest. A growing numbness dulls my focus and drags my eyelids closed.
The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen Series Book 3) Page 10